Gardener1850
Timeline Guru (Still Remembering Cupcake)
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2016
- Messages
- 42,100
- Reaction score
- 117,489
On the Who Was Walker County Jane Doe facebook page, I received a series of comments from a long-term resident of Aransas Pass named Theresa. I spoke with Theresa on the phone this morning, and I will summarize the info she provided in the comments of the thread, and during the telephone conversation.
I offer no opinion of the credibility of this information. , but I did forward this information to Detective Bean of the Walker County Sheriff Department.
Here is the information that I posted on the page:
_____________________
Theresa started the comments by saying that a male friend of hers knew the girl. He says her last name is Louis, but he didn’t know her first name. In the subsequent telephone conversation, she said the surname might have been spelled Lewis, and as she recalls, her first name might have been Elaine, or something like that.
The girl's father worked for Theresa's aunt, whose name was Gertrude Kelly. Ms. Kelly owned a concession associated with the Wagner’s Carnival company in Aransas Pass, and passed away some time in the 1980's. Wagner's would run carnivals that operated in the Eastern Texas area surrounding Corpus Christi. There were many drifter types who would travel in and out of the area to work the carnivals and on the shrimp boats. Many of those persons had criminal records.
Mr. Louis/Lewis had an arrest record, she believes for drug related offenses. His job was to set up and take down the carnival rides. He was of medium height & weight, had sandy colored hair and blue eyes, and spoke with a "Louisiana Bayou" or Cajun accent. But he lived in the Rockport area. Theresa said everyone addressed each other by their last names, so she didn’t know his first name
The girl's mother might have been named Sonja (but Theresa wasn't sure). Sonja lived in Rockport and frequented the bars in the area.
Theresa remembers the girl, because she was concerned that the girl was hanging out with the older men who were working the carnival. She asked Mr. Louis about the girl out of concern for her well being, since many of these men were of dubious character. Mr. Louis told Theresa that it was no problem, that she was his daughter.
Hmmmm... I found a couple of Gertrude Kelly's who died in the 1980's in Texas. This one had a child named Louis/Lewis: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36846829/gertrude-s.-kelly#
(Click on Louis' profile and it says *half-sibling named Lewis but they are the same person with different name spelling because they have the same birth and death date, nickname, etc. Findagrave auto- guesses at relationships until someone corrects it. In this case more than one person has entered him with an alternate name spelling)
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/99431108/louis-lindsay-guffey
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/121792127/lewis-lindsey-guffey
Anyway, is it possible that this Louis/Lewis that worked for Gertrude Kelly in the 1970s was actually her son but Theresa had forgotten or wasn't aware of that? The one in the above profile is buried in a family surname cemetery in Alabama which would fit with someone who has more of a Cajun/Bayou accent. Usually I can find more info on someone who died in 2009 but I'm not finding much about the above Lewis/Louis. Can anyone else find an obituary for him?
*Please remove if not allowed-- I was careful not to post any surnames, only links.